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Publications

Offensive policies to improve access to rental housing in Spain

Lower-income people access housing to a greater extent through rent (only 55% of Spanish households at risk of poverty own their homes), and expenses related to it represent a greater weight in their budgets (26%) compared to those who own 1.1%. As a result, 33% of the population of the poorest quintile experience an over-eating situation in housing expenditure.

Defense-based policies may help to resolve this situation, but they are unlikely to be enough themselves as they have more difficulty in covering families in the lower section of income (particularly tax deductions). Also…

(Read Publication ESP)

Reducing energy poverty in the long term: how to use European funds for housing rehabilitation.

The energy poverty of between 3 and 8 million people in Spain is structural in origin, in an ageing and inefficient housing stock, of which scarcely a small portion is rehabilitated (about 0.1% per year). In the short term, income transfers and other mechanisms make it possible to alleviate the situation, but it is not enough. In order to resolve this, we need to structurally intervene in the worst-case housing, which is often also the housing that is most vulnerable to energy poverty.We are providing three axes of action to make the most of European fund programmes and the new Renewal Wave in this direction: rehabilitation with combined income and efficiency criteria; improving information on the housing stock; and an increase in qualified staff around rehabilitation.

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Nudges and evaluation

The literature on nutages and its evaluation is extensive, and highlights the diversity of behaviour biases and possible interventions. Nudges seek to modify the architecture of individual decisions, trying to change people’s behavior in a particular direction and at a low cost. Its impact must take into account the cost-effectiveness of the money spent, compared to other more traditional public interventions aiming for the same objective. The use of experiments in their evaluation has made nutges an important tool of evidence-based policy, thus improving the design and effectiveness of public action. In this article, we seek to review current knowledge about the design and evaluation of the NUdges, and their importance for the development of policies based on evidence.

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The Issue of the Bilingual Program in the School Segregation by Source Socioeconomics in the Autonomous Community of Madrid: Evidence from PISA

School segregation by socioeconomic background in the Autonomous Community of Madrid is the highest in Spain and the second among OECD countries. The study has the dual aim of analysing the incidence of the implementation of the bilingual programme in Madrid from the 2004/05 course in school segregation, as well as its consequences on learner learning outcomes. The results indicate that families in non-bilingual centers have a much lower socioeconomic level than in bilingual centers. Segregation gradually increased between 2009 and 2018, for two reasons. On the one hand, the expansion of the network agreed during the previous decade. On the other hand, the expansion of the multilingual programme: in 2015 there is a sharp increase in segregation…

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Cities: Lights and Shadows of an increasingly urban world. “The cities and their role in commerce and transport systems”

Trade and economic activity have always gone hand in hand in the creation and expansion of cities. The growing role of international trade over the last few decades has favoured large urban concentrations, which, moreover, offer its inhabitants productive and consumer advantages, thereby strengthening the centripetal trend. The development of the digital economy involves major changes in the production and consumption of goods and services, changes which the COVID-19 pandemic may have helped to consolidate. All this raises questions about the future of trade in cities and their regulation.

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Reflections on the implementation of a guaranteed minimum wash in the city of Barcelona

The number of people at risk of poverty is very high in Catalonia, and especially in Barcelona. Faced with this situation, improving social protection in the city is one of the political priorities of the Barcelona City Council. This study offers a number of reflections regarding the design and implementation of a guaranteed minimum income by a local level of government, based on the prescriptions of scholarly literature and other issues to consider, such as its compatibility with other benefits…

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The financing of metropolitan areas

Large cities and metropolitan areas have to meet very different spending needs from those of other local governments. This study looks, on the one hand, from a theoretical point of view, at how large urban agglomerations, and more specifically metropolitan areas, should be organised and funded. On the other hand, the specific case of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area is examined, what are the functions it plays and how it is funded. The analysis shows how, on the basis of the prescriptions of the theory, it would be necessary to rethink the distribution of competences between the municipalities and the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, and to reform its financing system to increase its volume of resources and its fiscal autonomy…

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Electronic commerce and rural areas

The use of new information and communication technologies (ICT) has increased exponentially both globally and in the Spanish case in recent decades. In 2007, less than half of the Spanish population had access to the Internet, while today the percentage is almost 80%, according to data from the National Statistical Institute (INE). In Catalonia the increase has been similar (from 51% in 2007 to 88% in 2018, according to data from the Catalan Statistical Institute). In this context, thanks to the availability of these technologies…

(Read Publication CAT)

Scholarships and study grants at the university level

This paper offers a diagnosis of the system of scholarships and grants for university study in Spain between the years 2006-2016. Based on the analysis of the evolution of spending on scholarships and study grants, the level of government that finances them, their modality and their average amount, this work shows how the changes introduced in the regulations in 2013 modified the configuration of the aid system. Likewise, based on the analysis of microdata from the Living Conditions Survey, the level of progressivity of the current system is analyzed. Although the current system has a high level of progressivity and improvements compared to the previous system, there is still room for improvement. The differential treatment between regions, the increase in the amount of study aids for lower incomes and…

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